Arknights: The Holy Son's Leisurely Life — Chapter 5

Chapter 5: Hui-chieh, You’re BlushingYou're reading this on the wrong site. This chapter was translated by Elysian Reads and posted for free at elysianreads.com — if you're seeing it anywhere else, it was copied without permission. Read it at the source so the people who actually did the work get the credit.

The afternoon sun hung low over Lungmen, casting long, golden shadows across the bustling streets. Shortly after three o’clock, Lucian pushed his heavy wooden food cart out onto the pavement, the rhythmic clatter of its wheels signaling the start of his daily mobile route. The mid-afternoon crowd in the commercial district consisted mostly of chattering schoolchildren and elderly residents running errands—the exact demographic that flocked to his tea snacks. Passersby occasionally threw curious glances at his menu board, baffled by the pairing of buttery popcorn and steaming char siu bao, but Lucian merely offered them a lazy smile. It was purely a matter of personal taste.

He handled the winding avenues, transitioning from the pristine middle ring toward the city’s edge. Pausing beneath a flickering streetlamp, he lifted the cart’s wooden lid and inspected his remaining inventory.

“Hmm, that should be enough to go around today,” he murmured to himself.

He flipped the open sign around, draped a thick canvas dust cover over the glass display, and officially closed up shop for the afternoon. Yet, he did not turn back toward his tea house. Instead, he kept his hands on the cart’s handles, pushing deeper toward the outer fringes of Lungmen.

With every block he traversed, the polished veneer of the commercial city-state began to peel away. The towering glass high-rises thinned out, replaced by cramped, decaying structures. Lungmen was a financial powerhouse, a city with a small geographical footprint but an overwhelming population density. The closer one lived to the center, the higher their social standing. The inner ring belonged to the wealthy elites, while the middle ring housed the ordinary citizens in densely packed apartment blocks.

Beyond all of that lay the outermost ring. The Slums.

The transition was stark. The pristine pavement gave way to cracked, uneven asphalt slick with stagnant water. A labyrinth of narrow, claustrophobic alleys branched out in every direction, the walls choked with layers of peeling graffiti and illicit advertisements. It felt like stepping backward in time, entirely detached from the gleaming metropolis just miles away. This was the absolute bottom of Lungmen’s social hierarchy. It was a dumping ground for the elderly who had been priced out of the city, orphans left to fend for themselves, and fugitives who needed to vanish into the shadows. For a multitude of political and economic reasons, the Lungmen authorities turned a blind eye to this sector, allowing the outskirts to fester into a lawless no-man’s-land.

Yet, amidst the neglect, a fragile pulse of life persisted.

The scent of boiling broth wafted through the damp air. From a small, battered fish ball stand parked by the roadside, a raspy voice called out.

“Hey, Little Lucian! You are early today!”

Lucian slowed his cart and offered a polite nod. “Uncle Dong.”

He leaned against the wooden frame of the stall. “I keep telling you, my name is just Lucian. If you absolutely must give me a nickname, just call me Little Luc. It sounds like a star soccer player.”

The hunched old man scowled, stirring his boiling pot with a massive wooden spoon. “Hmph. Little Luc sounds like the name of a frivolous playboy. My Little Lucian is a proper, upstanding young man. He would never break a girl’s heart!”

Lucian rubbed the back of his neck, offering a dry, strained chuckle. “Uh… I will try my best?”

The old man’s casual praise hit like a physical blow, leaving Lucian glancing around the empty alleyway with a sudden, inexplicable sense of guilt. Like many of the elderly residents here, Uncle Dong was a chronic chatterbox with a penchant for meddling. If Lucian let the conversation drag on for another minute, he would inevitably find himself trapped in an aggressive matchmaking interrogation.

He needed an out, and quickly. “Ah, Uncle Dong, have you seen Xiao Ling around? I haven’t delivered the afternoon meals to the children yet.”

The stern wrinkles on Uncle Dong’s weathered face instantly softened into a fond, grandfatherly expression. “They should all be gathered in the big courtyard at this hour. You had better hurry along. Ah, wait, take a few bowls of fish balls with you! Freshly made, still piping hot!”

Unable to refuse the old man’s stubborn generosity, Lucian accepted the steaming containers. In exchange, he reached into his cart and handed over several bags of fresh soy milk and a stack of warm char siu bao.

This quiet barter was a staple of Lucian’s routine whenever he visited the Slums. He did not come to this forgotten district to turn a profit; he came to feed the hungry. The living conditions here were abysmal, but the shared hardship forged a fierce sense of community. Neighbors watched each other’s backs. The numerous orphans wandering the streets were often taken in by a communal house known simply as the ‘big courtyard’, where the adults pooled their meager resources and free time to keep the children safe.

The girl he had asked about, Xiao Ling, was the eldest among the orphans, shouldering the heavy responsibility of being the courtyard’s reliable big sister.

“Big Brother Lucian!”

Before Lucian even reached the rusted iron gates of the courtyard, a small figure came sprinting down the alley. The girl launched herself into the air, using the edge of his food cart as a springboard to vault directly at him.

“Whoa, Xiao Ling, you are full of energy today.”

Bracing his stance, Lucian caught her mid-air. He spun her around twice to bleed off the momentum, gently patting the back of the girl who was now clinging to his torso like a stubborn koala.

“Have you gained weight? Compared to last week… ow, ow, ow, why are you biting my ear?”

“Because Big Brother Lucian is an idiot,” the young Cautus girl mumbled against his shoulder, her long rabbit ears twitching with irritation. Despite her pout, she made absolutely no move to let go, perfectly content to act spoiled in his arms.

Lucian sighed, surrendering to the assault with a soft, amused smile. “Alright, alright, I am sorry. I was only joking. Xiao Ling is the slimmest of them all, not heavy in the slightest.” He shifted his grip to support her better. “Uncle Dong gave me some fresh fish balls today. Hurry and share them with the other kids while they are still hot.”and support the real translator.Read at elysianreads.com This is a stolen translation. You're reading this on the wrong site. This chapter was translated by Elysian Reads and posted for free at elysianreads.com — if you're seeing it anywhere else, it was copied without permission. Read it at the source so the people who actually did the work get the credit.

“Mhm!”

The girl nodded vigorously, finally dropping to the ground to help him carry the bundled food into the courtyard. As she darted back and forth between the cart and the house, Lucian’s sharp eyes caught a glimpse of the pale skin at the nape of her neck, just barely visible above her worn collar.

“Xiao Ling, come here for a second. Let me take a look.”

He beckoned her over. As she approached, Lucian gently lifted her hair, his gaze settling on a cluster of black, jagged minerals embedded in the back of her neck. The stones were roughly the size of a marble, protruding directly from her flesh as if taking root beneath her skin. It was a jarring, unnatural sight.

This was the true curse of the Slums, the primary reason its residents were permanently exiled from normal society: Oripathy.

In the world of Terra, industrial and societal progress relied entirely on a volatile mineral resource known as Originium. But the very ore that powered their cities also infected the populace with a terminal, incurable disease. Once contracted, Oripathy could never be eradicated. The afflicted could only wait in despair as the Originium crystals slowly multiplied across their bodies, eventually shutting down their organs and claiming their lives.

The stigma was absolute. Once diagnosed, an Infected was immediately cast out by ordinary society. While not every resident of the Lungmen Slums carried the disease, the Infected had nowhere else to go. The irony was that unless an Infected died and their body was left improperly handled, a living patient posed no direct threat of transmission. As long as one maintained basic precautions, interacting with the Infected was perfectly safe. They were just people, not terrifying monsters.

Lucian ran a gentle thumb near the edge of the crystal cluster, carefully measuring its size. He let out a quiet breath of relief upon confirming the stones had not grown since his last visit.

A warm smile touched his lips. He reached into a hidden, temperature-controlled compartment of his food cart and retrieved a small wooden box.

“Xiao Ling has been very good, taking care of everyone just like I asked. Take these and share them with the other Infected children. Make sure every single one of you eats one piece a day.”

“Mhm!” Xiao Ling’s eyes sparkled. She eagerly opened the box, plucked out a cube of deep red, blood-replenishing sugar candy, and popped it into her mouth. Her little face instantly melted into an expression of pure bliss.

“The candy you make is always so sweet! And it feels so warm… my whole body gets so comfortable after I eat it! Everyone loves it, even the kids who aren’t sick get jealous!”

“Ah, haha…” Lucian offered a dry, slightly evasive chuckle. “Well, the healthy kids can eat it too, I just do not have enough ingredients to make a larger batch. If I could produce more, then maybe… Anyway, you all take your time eating. I need to get going.”

“Ah, wait!” Xiao Ling grabbed the hem of his jacket, looking up at him with wide, pleading eyes. “Are you not going to eat with us? Everyone misses you… I miss you too.”

Lucian rubbed his chin, looking genuinely troubled. “I still have to deliver meals to a few elderly folks who live alone, my schedule is a bit tight right now, so—Ah.”

He stopped mid-sentence. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted something shifting behind the crumbling brick wall of the adjacent alley. It was a tail. Slender, smooth, completely hairless, and ending in a distinct, swaying red tip. It twitched back and forth with a nervous, guilty rhythm.

Lucian recognized that tail instantly. He was intimately familiar with it.

A sly, mischievous glint flashed in his eyes. He leaned down, whispering a few quiet instructions directly into Xiao Ling’s ear. The Cautus girl’s eyes lit up with absolute delight, and she nodded furiously.

Tapping into the same explosive athleticism she had used to tackle him earlier, Xiao Ling scrambled up the side of the brick wall in three fluid bounds. Balancing on the narrow ledge on all fours, she scurried directly above the hiding spot and launched herself downward.

“Big Sister Hui-chieh!”

“Wha—?!”

A startled yelp echoed from the alley. A woman stumbled backward into the open street, flailing her arms in disarray as Xiao Ling clung happily to her shoulders. Her sudden appearance placed her directly in Lucian’s line of sight.

Lucian crossed his arms, thoroughly enjoying the sight of the usually composed Lungmen Guard Department officer completely flustered. A deep, embarrassed blush painted her cheeks as she tried to regain her footing.

Lucian’s lips curled into a lazy, teasing grin.

“Good afternoon, Ch’en Hui-chieh. It seems fate has brought us together in this quiet alley. Would you care to join me for a cup of tea?”You're reading this on the wrong site. This chapter was translated by Elysian Reads and posted for free at elysianreads.com — if you're seeing it anywhere else, it was copied without permission. Read it at the source so the people who actually did the work get the credit.